Sri Aurobindo
Autobiographical Notes
and Other Writings of Historical Interest
Part Two. Letters of Historical Interest
2.Early Letters on Yoga and the Spiritual Life
1911–1928
To Barindra Kumar Ghose and Others, 1922–1928
To Barindra Kumar Ghose [3]1
Pondicherry
9th December
1922
Dear Barin,
I have read carefully Jyotish Ghose’s letter and I
think the best thing is first to explain his present condition as he describes
it. For he does not seem to me to understand the true causes and the meaning.
The present condition of passivity and indifference is
a reaction from a former abnormal state to which he was brought by an internal
effort not properly guided from without or from within. The effort brought about
a breaking of the veils which divide the physical from the psychic and vital
worlds. But his mind was unprepared and unable to understand his experiences and
judged them by the light of fancy and imagination and erroneous mental and vital
suggestions. His vital being full of rajasic 
and egoistic energy rushed up violently to enjoy these new fields and use the
force that was working for its own lower ends. This gave an opportunity for a
hostile power from the vital world to break in and take partial possession and
the result was disorganisation of the nervous and physical system and some of
the brain centres. The attack and possession seem to have passed out and left
behind the present reaction of passivity with a strong hold of tamas and
indifference. The tamas and indifference are not in themselves desirable things
but they are temporarily useful as a rest from the past unnatural tension. The
passivity is desirable and a good basis for a new and right working of the
Shakti.
It is not a true interpretation of his condition that
he is dead within and there is only an outside activity. What is true is that
the centre of vital egoism that thinks itself the actor has been crushed and he
now feels all the thought and activity playing outside him. This is a state of
knowledge; for the real truth is that all these thoughts and activities are
Nature’s and come into us or pass through us as waves from the universal Nature.
It is our egoism and our limitation in the body and individual physical mind
which prevent us from feeling and experiencing this truth. It is a great step to
be able to see and feel the truth as he is now doing. This is not of course the
complete knowledge. As the knowledge becomes more complete and the psychic being
opens upwards one feels all the activities descending from above and can get at
their true source and transform them.
The light playing in his head means that there has been
an opening to the higher force and knowledge which is descending as light from
above and working on the mind to illumine it. The electrical current is the
force descending in order to work in the lower centres and prepare them for the
light. The right condition will come when instead of the vital forces trying to
push upward the Prana becomes calm and surrendered and waiting with full assent
for the light and when instead of the chasm in between there is a constant
aspiration of the heart towards the truth above. The light must descend into
these lower centres so as to transform the emotional and vital and physical
being as well as the mental thought and will.
The utility of psychic
experiences and knowledge of the invisible worlds as of other yogic experiences
is not to be measured by our narrow human notions of what may be useful for the
present physical life of man. In the first place these things are necessary for
the fulness of the consciousness and the completeness of the being. In the
second place these other worlds are actually working upon us. And if you know
and can enter into them then instead of being the victims and puppets of these
powers we can consciously deal with, control and use them. Thirdly, in my Yoga,
the Yoga of the supramental, the opening of the psychic consciousness to which
these experiences belong is quite indispensable. For it is only through the
psychic opening that the supramental can fully descend with a strong and
concrete grasp and transform the mental, vital and physical being.
This is the present condition and its value. For the
future if he wishes to accept my yoga the conditions are a steady resolve and
aspiration towards the truth I am bringing down, a calm passivity and an opening
upward towards the source from which the light is coming. The Shakti is already
working in him and if he takes and keeps this attitude and has a complete
confidence in me there is no reason why he should not advance safely in the
sadhana in spite of the physical and vital damage that has been done to his
system. As for his coming here to see me I am not yet quite ready but we will
speak of it after your return to Pondicherry.
Aurobindo